


Death On Two Legs

by homohurley



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, shyan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-08-29 09:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 19,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homohurley/pseuds/homohurley
Summary: Rivalry in between two old friends, elite hitmen known as Banjo McClintock and Ricky Goldsworth gets more heated by the day, spiralling towards disaster as they battle on wich of them gets their hands on the famous detective C.C Tinsley faster.





	1. Leech

Shane Madej was an intelligent man. One of the most intelligent in the country, one could argue.  
Well, he would at least.  
He flashed a charming smile to the receptionist on his way upstairs in the tall office building. The black suitcase he carried gave her the impression that he was just one of the hundreds of office workers, so she didn't really pay attention. It always worked. A gold plate in the side of that suitcase had initals carved on it, a detail nobody ever seemed to notice; B.M.  
That was his name- Benjamin "Banjo" McClintock, not Shane. He almost forgot again.  
His job was really easy. The lies were the easiest part, actually. He mixed up his own aliases sometimes- a minor problem. Pulling the trigger wasn't that hard either. Usually. The hardest part was something that he didn't admit to anyone- not even himself at first; the hardest part was relationships. The lack of them, in fact.  
He didn't need them, that was his excuse. He was Shane fucking Madej, the most booked hitman in the country, and who would need relationships when everything else was so damn great in his life?  
He had money and scary big mobster friends, a huge front operation, employees even, a huge apartment...  
But the truth was, he was lonely.  
A little bit.  
Actually no, he was REALLY lonely.  
So lonely that at night he would hug a pillow like it was a person. Of course nobody could ever know that, hell, he'd lose half his clients if a word about him clinging to his sheets like a teenager after a breakup would spread around the dark web. And he couldn't exactly go on tinder. Why wasn't there a dating app for criminals, he sometimes wondered.  
It was Friday in mid November. The sky outside was pale gray like cigarette smoke, dim sunlight barely getting trough the mass of clouds and illuminating the stairway. His long coat flapped around him mysteriously as his long legs sprinted up two stairs at a time.  
He was late. Two minutes late.  
It wasn't much, yet it could ruin his entire operation.  
He had been paid to assassinate a detective, some guy called Tinsley, and the window was narrow; the man would be meeting the chief of police in the building across the street. The windows were perfectly aligned. He had one shot, and it could have been late already.  
The eighth floor was deserted, and there was one lone office that he knew had an open door. The elevator had cameras, he couldn't risk it, but the ones in the stairway always staid behind him, making it easy for him to hide his face.  
Eight floor. A clock was ticking heavily in the hallway, no lights were on. Most of the offices were under construction there, moldy pipes or something.  
His outline must have looked straight from a spy movie then, white light flooding from behind him, neat leather shoes snapping against the floor as he walked swiftly in his classy buisness man attire, soon turning into the last room in the hall.  
His eyes took a moment to adjust, and to his surprise there was an outline by the window already. A little paniced he strided forward, silently as the man didn't seem to hear him at the doorway. Then it clicked to him; Shane knew the man in front of him, and he knew him well.  
"Are you lost, little guy?"  
It was dark apart from the open window, plastic tarps fluttered in the wind. LA was at it's busyest then, noises of traffic and muffled ambulance sirens rose from down below.  
Shane flashed a smug smile as the other man tensed up, not moving an inch from his position by the gun, scope out of the open window. He was laying on his stomach on the floor, seemingly not minding that his suit was getting dirty.  
"Madej." He announced bitterly.  
"Long time no see, Goldsworth. Or should I say Bergara, now that nobody´s around?”  
"What the fuck are you doing here?"  
Ryan finally turned around as he realized how unprobable it was that he'd get shot in the head by the intrudor. Shane was still grinning.  
"I was just about to ask you that! What a small world it is."  
Shane was oddly enough not that angry at this surprise obsicle- seeing Ryan after all those years was actually quite fun. His smile had began to look more genuine than smug. The way the shorter man's face was full on furious flooded his mind with memories. It had been two years now since they last met, and that time hadn't been fun on either of them.  
"You robbed me blind, you fucking bloodsucking leech of a dickhead!"  
Ryan almost knocked his sniper down trough the window as he shifted off his position to face Shane, glasses hanging low on the tall man's nose, lazy smile on his face. He had a beard now- something Ryan hadn't seen on him before.  
It suited him.  
"Aw boo hoo, Grow up Bergara! That was ages ago, you must have built an entirely new empire by now!"  
Shane had forgotten all about Tinsley at that point, keenly staring down into Ryan's huge, almost black looking eyes and the almost smile recembling expression of flaming rage. It was amusing as hell. Ryan was like a little baby hamster with a gun, not intimidating at all with his babyface.  
"I can't believe you right now..!"  
His voice muffled in amazement and despair.  
"You have no idea- no fucking idea what you did to me! I was basically on the streets Shane! I had nothing, it all burnt down to ash!"  
"You seem to be doing fine now, I mean hell, that suit looks more expensive than my education and you're just laying in the dirt like that?" Shane laughed, the flames of irritation grew bigger, brighter, hotter in Ryan's eyes like a rapidly spreading wildfire, and Shane was soaking himself with gasoline.  
A beep of Ryan's phone interrupted them, and the irritation in his eyes was replaced with panic as soon as his eyes scanned over the screen.  
"Is it done?"  
"Oh shit, Shane you've fucking done it again!" He groaned, turning back to face the window with a face suddenly flushed of all color. He peered into the scope, scanning the room across the street from them for Tinsley, but he was already gone.  
Shane had remembered the job he went there to do in the first place as he collected himself from the nostalgic haze of the good old days, feeling the panic eat at him internally but working hard not to show it.  
He was good at that, hiding emotions.  
"Shit! Shit!!!" Ryan was groaning on the floor.  
"Seems like we've both got a detective to catch. Oh, this is gonna be fun, Ryan! A little game of capiture the flag! Last one to Tinsley is a sissy!"  
And with that he bolted out of the room with three quick steps, leaving Ryan to pack up his gun and text his client to tell him that no, there were... complications, Tinsley is still breathing. He might have as well been the literal worst hitman in the world, that's what he felt like at least. Getting distracted by the stupid face of Shane Madej- that wasn't like him at all!  
Actually, it was very like him.  
But Ryan didn't want to think of all those other times. They were ridiculous and happened years ago, and he sure as hell wouldn't repeat those mistakes again!  
It was a bit of a blur, but within four minutes he too was running down the stairs to the first floor, out on the street and towards that black car that waited for him, the one that was supposed to grab him and flee before the cops showed up for the gunshot.  
But there had been no gunshot, and Ryan hated himself, and he hated Shane ten times more.


	2. King of the Sleaze

Some people are smart.  
And some people are like Shane Madej;  
Spitting out blood in a Subway customer bathroom, that stupid and irritating grin still plastered on his face. The blood was bubbly and chunky as it poured hot down from the both of his nostrils.  
Ryan stood outside, knuckles matchingly wounded, resting his head against the bathroom door as he listened for Shane's movements around the sink.

 

Fifteen minutes earlier:

A black car stopped across the street from Shane, he knew from the moment it slid into his view that shit would go down.  
Before anyone stood out, he wondered wich one it would be;  
His employer, the one he failed on the first attempt to assasinate C.C Tinsley the day before,  
Or Ryan Steven Bergara, an angry short man with the face of a twelve year old and the arms of a lumberjack.  
Luckily it was the latter.  
He looked rather cute in that knit, waddling across the road with anger in his eyes. It was weird to think that this cupcake of a man killed people as his profession.  
Shane gave him a dumb wave, towering over all the other people walking the street. Ryan seemed to get even angrier at this, sprinting past the traffic.  
"Woah there little guy, you could get hit by a car at that rate!"  
Shane had barely the time to finish his sentence as the first punch landed under his ribcage (because Ryan was too short to actually reach Shane's face).  
The tall man folded over with a groan.  
"It's almost a shame to trash your face, oh never mind, I don't give a shit."  
Ryan panted, landing the second punch on Shane's cheek so hard that his own arm hurt almost as bad as Shane's face did. A bit of blood came out Shane's mouth as he spit with a chuckle, looking quite grim as the saliva on his teeth was crimson in color.  
"You hit harder than I remembered, I'm truly impressed! Have you been working ou-"  
He was cut off by the third punch, it knocked Shane in the nose. Blood began to pour from his nostrils immediately, so fast that he had to press the sleeve of his flannel on it in order to keep it in some kind of control.  
There wasn't a fourth one, luckily. Ryan grabbed shane by the arm so hard that it could have easily left a small bruise, pulling the man trough the small crowd that had gathered around them, into nearest shop.  
The barista in that Subway restaurant looked terrified.  
"Should I call the police sir? Or an ambulance?"  
Ryan just smiled at her, a bit scarily happy look on him.  
"It's fine, thank you."  
And both him and Shane disappeared into the bathroom as fast as they had appeared.

"What the fuck was all that about?"  
Shane groaned, stuffing his nose with toilet paper, trying to stop the bleeding.  
"That? Oh, only for Chicago, for Devon, and that time you cuffed me to a fucking table and burned my house down and stole every penny from my bank account, and oh, for yesterday when you ruined my kill and caused me to lose 20% of my profit."  
Ryan barely managed to keep his voice down, and he barely managed not to kick Shane in the face for having the guts to even ask that question.  
"You're pure sleaze, Shane Madej, and you should be glad that you're still breathing. I've had wet dreams about squeezing the life out of your miserable lamp-post of a body."  
To that, Shane actually laughed a bit, wich proved to be a bit hard as his mouth filled with the blood from his nose all the time, and also because his jaw took quite a hit.  
"I'm the king of the sleaze, baby!"  
He grinned, and Ryan barely managed to keep his hands from choking Shane right there and then. A tempting tought, really.  
"Don't- don't call me baby."  
He hissed trough his teeth, grabbed a handful of toiletpaper and stormed out of the bathroom.

 

 

Later that night, Shane laid in bed with an aching jaw.  
There was a feeling in his chest that he despised, he had gotten rid of it years ago and there it was again. he wasn´t used to feeling woulnerable, because he was the kind of guy to imagine Terminator soundtrack playing in the background as he did things. He tought that he was somehow immune to normality.  
The kind of guy who masked jealousy with pity. "Oh I feel so bad for those fools in love." He would casually comment on a couple he'd spot in the streets.  
He did find guys attractive though, not in a relationship kind of way, just in general 'I'd bang him' kind of way.  
That was before Ryan came along and ruined everything.  
It was almost like somehow that round faced, huge eyed, enormously muscular dude took a jackhammer and tore the foundations of Shane's entire being to the ground, and that was putting it mildly.  
Love stories are so cliché, and look, here we are.

Laying awake at night was rare for Shane. He'd sleep like a baby after splattering people's brains all over their ceilings, that was fine, but now? He was awake because of Ryan fucking Bergara.  
That hadn't happened in two years!  
Getting punched in the face by him was actually kind of fun. He'd take that treatment again in a heartbeat if that only meant he'd be feeling Ryan so damn close again-  
He caught himself daydreaming like a teenager.  
Fucking pathetic.

In the other side of the city, Ryan was awake as well. His reason to that was notably less teenage like.  
There were piles and piles of paperwork on his desk, waiting to be combed trough.  
"Sir, there's someone on the landline for you." Francesca, Ryan's secritary poked her head in the office.  
"The landline?"  
Ryan wasn't sure he heard her right, that phone was mostly used by staff and nobody outside of the Goldsworth estate should be able to get their hands on that number.  
"Yes sir, they wouldn't tell me their name, just said it was important."  
She sounded a little on edge too.  
"All right, thank you Fran."  
With that, she left. And Ryan took off his glasses, ran his hand trough the mess that was his hair and stood up. The office was nice. Not too nice, he didn't want to over do it. There were a lot of books and locked shelves full of files, nothing that would land him to jail if they'd ever get in the wrong hands. The important files were never in physical form. They were on one singular flashcard, and Ryan protected that with his life.

"Hello?" Ryan grinded his teeth as he picked up the landline in the reception desk, half expecting to hear Shane's voice in the other end. It wouldn't have been very unlikely actually, Shane was good at pulling the right strings to get the right information.  
But the voice in the other end was someone way else.  
"Mr. Goldsworth." A dry, cold man's voice announced.  
"Who is this, how did you get this number?" Ryan hid the panic creeping up his spine behind a stern voice, dodging Francesca's curious looks from the other side of the lounge. This had never happened before- a security breach of this size. That landline phone was supposed to be untracable, probably even more protected than any phone number in the white house.  
"We have common intrests, Mr. Goldsworth. I suppose the name C.C Tinsley rings a bell?"  
Ryan's eyes widened, his breathing stuck to his throat. Nobody was supposed to know. He began to think of spies, of possible rats in his staff. Francesca wasn't there anymore, the lounge was abandoned as it bathed in the yellow light of the lamps high up in the almost victorian like ceiling.  
"It seems like there are more and more people who'd like to see him dead in this city. This call is a warning; decline whatever offer your client gave you for his kill. Back off from this if you don't want to watch your empire burn-  
Again.  
I know who you are, Ryan Bergara."  
Then the call cut off.

 

Shane´s phone buzzed just as he had fallen asleep, in the blue glow of the night it cast it's white light on the sheets. He groaned as he rolled over to pick it up.  
A blocked number was calling. A stupid excitement rose up to the man's throat as he answered, hoping for it to be Ryan.  
It most certainly wasn't.  
"Mr. McClintock."  
That voice drew chills down Shane's spine- he knew it too well from the most terrible part of his past. A cold, creaky voice of an older man.  
"Doctor." He spit the title out with despise. They went far back, even further than Shane did with Ryan. He felt a twist in his gut as the memories flooded his mind, making his old scars ache. Literally.  
"What do you want?" He wasn't afraid, hell no, more like extremely pissed off.  
The caller was Dr. Jesse Fear.  
"I want you to decline whatever sum of money your client offered for the assassination of Tinsley. And I want you to do it tonight, before the entire world knows who Banjo McClintock really is."  
Shane swallowed hard. He hadn't expected this- not at all. And Dr. Fear went straight to the point too, no small talk or anything. Classic.  
"Why? You want him?" Shane scoffed, knowing full well that he should be taking the threats more seriously. He had made the mistake of underestimating the man many times in the past, and it always lead to chaos.  
"Go and fucking get him, douchewad, let's see wich of us gets to him the fastest."  
The line went silent for a second, Shane almost tought that Fear had ended the call. Then there was a dry, very fake, grumbling bit of laughter. The air in the room had began to feel heavy, suffocating almost, like on a mountaintop. Shane swallowed the knot in his throat as soon as he began to notice it forming,  
"You haven't changed a bit it seems, Banjo. Still a stupid boy with a fast tongue for insults."  
Shane knew he should be scared, he should be agreeing to everything Fear told him to do if he valued his life, and that annoyed him so unbelievably much. Frankly, he didn't really value his life at all, and his instincts seemed to be like the nagging voice of his mother echoing in the back of his skull. Easy to ignore.  
"Well, it's been fun chatting with ya, but I've got an early morning tomorrow, so you know, bye."  
And he cut the call faster than the doctor could threaten him any further.  
God, this was the last thing he needed at that point.  
Re-uniting with his old pal Ryan and getting a call from his former fuckwad of a boss on the same day? He felt like a pawn in the chess game of Satan himself. Something big was coming, he could feel it in the heavy air as he laid his head back on the pillow, staring up to the white ceiling above.  
His life, his career, it was all on the edge of a knife now. But it wouldn't change a thing if he called his client and declined the hit. Actually, it would just swap Fear's place with his client's, and Shane would probably get murdered by some mafia guys on his way to the store the next day or something.  
The choice was simple;  
Either killing Tinsley himself, getting a shit ton of money from his client, possibly causing Fear to expose his identity and landing him to jail,  
Or leaving Tinsley alone, getting himself killed by mobsters.  
Easy choice, actually.  
He'd kill Tinsley, because if there was one thing Shane Madej actually took seriously, it was his job.


	3. Coffee´s For Closers

He was rubbing the bridge of his nose, the bittersweet dried cut on it rimmed with a yellowing brown bruise.  
His coffee was cold, it tasted like bitter piss.  
"Come on Ryan, just tell me. What did he threaten you with?"  
The shorter man's face was buried deep in his hands as he sat in the coffee shop table, right across from Shane.

Ryan didn't want to be there, really.  
Shane had called the meeting.  
The morning after Fear had called him, of course he realized Ryan would have recieved a similar call as well. It was a simple puzzle to put together still, even though it wouldn't stay that way for much longer. Complications were gathering in the horizon like dark storm clouds.  
And Ryan didn't want to meet at all at first, he actually tought the caller had been one of Shane's goons at first, trying to scare him away from Tinsley.  
It took forty minutes of explaining for Ryan to even consider getting a coffee.  
And now, there they were, in the middle of the rush hour, two hitmen sipping some expensive espresso with sour looks painted on their tired, worried faces.

 

"He just... he said he'd make sure my empire would burn again... and he... he knew my real name."  
Ryan swallowed, sinking deeper into a bundle, covering his entire face with his hands. How did it get to this? Coffee with Shane Madej, the man he despised the most? This must have been the lowest low Ryan had ever reached, he tought.  
"How do you even know him? I mean, doctor Fear?! Who's even named that?!" The short man laughed in disbelief, rising his eyebrows from behind his fingers, desperation in his paniced and dry laughter.  
"It's a long story, let's not go there now." Shane's voice was rarely like that, so... serious. So Ryan let it go.  
"But anyway, I think we need to kill him." He continued, voice entirely too loud taken how they were in a public place swarming with people. Ryan sushed him with a murderous glare.  
"Have you lost your mind?! What the hell Shane, don't ever talk like that in public!"  
"Chill out dude, you'll pop a vein in your head at this rate."  
There it was again, the lazy smile and sly look in his eyes. Classic Shane, making it hard for Ryan not to punch him again.  
"Fuck you." The shorter man huffed.  
It was a cold morning, Ryan was bundled in a winter jacket and a big scarf, actually looking quite adorable. Shane was still only in his usual jean jacket, he pretended to be fine though he was actually freezing.  
"Anyway, you seem like the kind of guy who'd want to make it personal. You know, vandettas. You've got big hands. Good for squeezing the life out of someone, I suppose."  
Ryan said dryly.  
"Oh, they're good at more than that, baby."  
Shane had a stupid sense of humor, Ryan assumed that he was joking, yet oddly felt a blush rise on his cheeks. He had always done that, teasing, flirting, just to get on Ryan's nerves.  
"Don't fucking call me that!" He murmured, face suddenly lowered back into his palms so Shane wouldn't see the deepening red on his face.  
Little did he know, this time the giant of a man wasn't only being annoying. He was showing interest in that stupid, very Shane kind of way.  
"So what do we do?"  
"Huh?"  
"About Fear." Ryan sighed.  
"I don't know."  
It was almost like admitting defeat for Shane, showing that he was unsure in front of Ryan like that. He knew what they had to do, but how they would do it was a question too big for him to figure out after barely four hours of sleep.  
His pride was like a brick wall topped with barbed wire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is three times shorter than the last chapter with less than 1k of words, I´m sorry! The previous chapters are actually five chapters fused to two, and I couldn´t do that now ´cause the next few will be flashback chapters so idk I didn´t wanna make it messy.


	4. Oh Shooter

Three years earlier  
December 31st, 2015

Ryan "Night Night" Bergara was just a 24 year old with a sniper gun and the aim of Hawkeye and Deadshot combined.  
And he was so damn good with that gun that he had already built himself a reputation that got him invited to fancy mobster parties. And he had money too, ridiculously lot of it. Stupid gangster nicknames aside, his kill count was towering at 90, and taken how young he was, it was really impressive.  
He had been invited to the traditional new years gala at the Hoffa manor.  
He hated it. A huge house full of criminals and mob bosses, he felt really out of place. People like that were usually his clients, the ones he recieved emails and checks from. He never met those people, just did their dirty work. A buzzing headache was already beginning to spread in the back of his skull, he tried to silence it with yet another glass of champagne.

Those were the simple times.  
Before "Ricky Goldsworth" was born.  
Before the gnawing rage filled Ryan's veins and made his mind cloudy, before he had to re-build every inch of his world with bare hands.  
Before he met Shane.

He actually met Shane later on that same god-forsaken night, and as the clock hit midnight and the year changed to 2016, a whole new era had begun.

"90 really is an impressive number for a little guy like you." A thin, tall man offered Ryan a charming smile as the guests at the party began to pour out to the veranda to watch the fireworks.  
"Thank you." The first reaction Ryan had towards the stranger was pure annoyance. Maybe it was the sly tone of his voice, or the charming looks combined with that. Ryan liked kind and serious people, and this stranger seemed like the opposite of that from the first second they spent together. They shook hands.  
"Benjamin McClintock. Please, call me Banjo."  
"Bergara."  
Shane's grip had been tight, Ryan felt puny standing so much lower than him. He had to look up in a sixty degree angle to even meet with his eyes.  
They sparkled with child like glee in the soft glow of the veranda lights.  
"What brings you to Chigago? You're not from around here, I presume."  
Shane's suit was neat, navy blue with golden cufflinks, white blouse and a black tie underneath.  
He must have been cold in the faint snowfall.  
Ryan wore a winter coat on top of his black suit- smart as he was.  
"How could you tell?" He asked with clear irritation in his tone. Shane was still smiling, enjoying every moment.  
"Well, it's barely 30 degrees cold out here. You're bundled up in a parka- probably from LA then I suppose."  
"Who are you, Sherlock Holmes?"  
Ryan scoffed and turned his head to look for a waiter. He was in a desperate need for a drink, this McClintock character was turning the buzzing headache into a violently throbbing one.  
"Nice meeting ya." Shane called after him, waved his long arm once (almost smacking some lady in the face), and dissappeared into the crowd just as the first set of fireworks exploded on the black sky, filling it with color.

That marked day one on the fairytale that was Ryan's and Shane's bumpy relationship.  
They were never friends, Ryan never liked his tall, annoyingly cheerful counterpart.

The first time they worked together was two months later- February 2016.

"We meet again, Bergara!"  
That voice, Ryan remembered it faintly.  
He turned to face where it came from, a man in a jean jacket towered above everyone else gathered in the warehouse. He was wearing a beanie, plastic framed glasses hung on his nose as he was glowing with a smile.  
"McClintock, was it?" Ryan sighed.  
"I feel honored you remember."  
The fake serious tone he pulled was kind of cute. Kind of. A little bit.  
"Looks like we're colleagues now, we better learn to get along..."  
Ryan muttered under his breath as he shook that big hand once again.

 

The task was simple.  
A team of four was sent out to assasinate a group of MI6 agents- their client was anonymous and paid the most Ryan had ever gotten from a kill.  
TJ was driving, Devon was on the front seat chatting away. Ryan and Shane shared the back seat.  
"You spell February weird."  
The taller man noted, grinning. The back car left the warehouse at half past seven, perfectly as the dusk began to swallow Chigago.  
"No I don't. Feb-ri-ary. How the fuck do you spell it then?"  
"You say it like, with an I. There's no I in February, Ryan!"  
"Shut up longlegs."  
The yellow streetlights painted Shane's face, it was an oddly mesmerizing.  
"You two sound like an old married couple- are you sure you don't know each other at all?"  
Devon asked, grinning. "Yeah, I don't know this man and I'd like not to."  
Ryan grunted.  
"Rude." Shane sounded fake hurt.

The car stopped in the red lights across from the hotel building at exactly seven. Devon jumped off there, awkwardly running trough the traffic in the sleet. She looked so normal- it was terrifying to think what she ran there to do.  
The car was silent after she left. The lights didn't change in a few minutes, it was a busy street, and the air was heavy with an awkward sense of anxiety.  
Shane spoke again as the car started to move again, heading for the street corner in the other side of the building where TJ would stay and wait as Ryan and Shane went in trough the back door to do the job.  
"Man, I'd love some Chipotle after we're done."  
He looked hazy. Tired. A little smug.  
"Mmh." Ryan couldn't figure out anything better to say, eyes tracing the chunks of sleet that melted to water, running down on his window.  
The car was on the spot soon enough, and Shane yanked his fancy briefcase up from the car floor with a smile.  
Ryan took his notably less fancy backpack from the seat in between them, not looking half as excited.

Behind the back door was a dimly lit stairway. The door had a buzzer- that was what Devon was for. She disabled all the alarms and cameras for the boys in a matter of minutes, and God alone knows how she did that. TJ waited outside, engine running, ready to bolt before the cops would come.  
Shane was still smiling as he ran up the stairs with his inhumanly tall legs, briefcase swinging around happily in his grip. Ryan's hands were sweaty.  
He wasn't usually nervous on the job, but well, usually he worked alone.  
Now he had been paired up with the best of the best, America's sweetheart when it came to assasinations- Banjo fucking McClintock. The stakes were sky high.  
"Nervous, little guy?"  
The nickname made Ryan grind his teeth. "No." He mumbled under his breath like a grumpy toddler, making Shane laugh.  
"Good. I wanna see the famous 'Night Night' Bergara do what he supposedly does the best."  
"Well, you're in luck then, Longlegs."

The top floor's door had an electronic lock. And of course, Devon took care of it before the boys even reached the handle.  
Behind it opened a hallway. It was the maintenance bit of the eleventh floor, doors to boiler rooms and supply closets ran along the narrow aisle before it branched out to the bigger hallway. Somewhere along it came muffled voices.  
"Room 224." Shane whispered, voice so low that Ryan struggled to hear it. He began to unzip his bag, taking his 38 caliber revolver into his clammy hands. It was heavy, familiar, oddly reassuring.  
Shane had done the same, taken his 9Millimeter from the briefcase, now holding it quite dramatically.

The door was right in front of them, silent sounds, heated whispers barely audible trough it.  
Shane gave the signal, a nod, eyes nailed into Ryan's for that one moment that felt so raw, so real, it could have been the last one in their lives.

Then he knocked.

Anticlimactic as it sounds, he did. The chatter inside stopped, and in the silence footsteps reached the door.

The first shot fired the second the door was opened, muffled by the silencer.


	5. First One To Go

Pulling the trigger was the easiest part.  
Always was, always had been.  
No witnesses, no footage, no threat.  
And then it all went to shit.

"Don't move."  
Shane was cool as ice, face scarily emotionless, voice soft. His hands were steady as he held the gun, almost if he had born holding it. Ryan swallowed hard, sweat running down his back.  
"Don't fucking move."  
Calm words, smooth as butter. That was the first time Ryan felt any sort of positive emotions towards Shane. Admiration. The man was so good at what he did, it was annoying.

Five men and two women stood now in the room. One man laid on the floor, dead, hole in the center of his forehead. The only light came from the desk lamp on the bedside table, illuminating most of the room.  
It wasn't supposed to go that way.  
Shane nodded towards the door for Ryan to close it, eyes nailed to the five people in the room. He was like a wolf, staring down it's prey.  
It wasn't supposed to be that way, he bit his lip to hide the panic.  
"Plan B." He grunted, voice low so only Ryan could hear.

One of the men was a staff member- he wasn't supposed to be in there. He squeezed the spare towels he had been delivering against his chrest, like a child would hold a stuffed animal after waking to a nightmare.  
Ryan Tought about how Devon must have sent him a text, she wouldn't just throw them under a bus like this. After all, it was her who controlled the cameras in the eleventh floor- for now.

The lock clicked shut and Ryan leaped over the dead man, avoiding the blood from getting on his fancy new shoes.  
"Kill 'em all?" He muttered, not quite tall enough to reach Shane's ear, just directing the whisper upwards.  
"Yup."  
Shane gave the paniced, crying bellboy an emphatic smile before shooting him in the head. They were finished in no more than ten seconds, Shane shooting three and Ryan four. The thuds of the bodies were louder than the shots had been.  
The room was covered in red afterwards.  
Ryan's gut was twisting all the way to the first floor as he opened his phone to see no texts from Devon.  
That was the first time his operation had claimed an innocent life, and it could have been avoided easily.  
With one text.

They sat in Chipotle fifteen minutes later as the cop cars pulled up.  
Shane didn't bat an eye.  
"Chill Ryan, They aren't for us."  
He surmised, mouth full of his burrito. Ryan's eyes flashed in terror in the blue and red gleam of the lights.  
It was, in fact, for them.

Shane didn't protest as the cops slammed the cuffs on his wrists.  
"What gave us away?" He asked with a smirk- that fucking smirk Ryan learned to hate on that very moment.  
"Surveillance footage, you idiot."  
"Huh?"  
And that was when he realized, Devon never texted back when he had asked her to join them for Chipotle. They all just assumed she hadn't been hungry.

That marked the first time Banjo McClintock and Ryan 'Night Night' Bergara got caught by the police.

 

Shane wasn't a first timer when it came to interrogations.  
He sat there, leaning on his elbows, chewing on his bottom lip like a moody teenager busted for smoking pot.  
He knew he'd be out of there and fast- he had a whole team of people working for him to destroy the evidence, and they were the best of the best.  
If there was no footage, there was no case. He smiled to himself.

Ryan in the other hand, was held up in a cell. He was pissed, sincerely from the bottom of his heart.  
How could Shane let this happen?  
How could Devon?  
Did something happen to her? She was supposed to be a professional. Now he would be forced to live the rest of his life locked up, just because someone forgot to send a simple damn text!  
His angered brainstorming was interrupted by a voice.  
"Ready to go, sir?"  
One of the officers who had busted them spoke, holding the cell's keycard with an emotionless expression.  
"What?" Ryan couldn't really figure out anything better to say, his eyes were the size of dinner plates as he stared in amazement. The officer opened the door and took the cuffs from the shorter man's wrists.  
"The charges were dropped." Was the only thing resembling an answer that Ryan got, and frankly he was fine with that. He just wanted to go home.

It was Shane- of course it was.  
His goons, his hacker crew, all the people who he had working for him. It was easy to erase evidence with that much power.  
Ryan took a taxi home, head aching. He felt angry, confused. Where was Devon? He knew TJ had been put into a cell like him and Shane, but there was no trace of her anywhere.

Two days went by fast.  
The snow had began to melt outside, revealing the gray asphalt underneath. Ryan sat in his high-rise apartment, staring down to the streets of Chigago with a cup of already cold coffee in front of him on his mahogany dining table.  
Devon was dead.  
He scrolled down the crime scene photos on his ipad, knot in his throat.  
Two lives were lost now, and it was supposed to be just like any mission.  
Shane hadn't called, why would he?  
Ryan just wished that he had heard about Devon from him, not from his secritary.  
She had been shot in the head from behind, most of her skull was in pieces of mush on the walls. It had happened in the hotel surveilance room, or cupboard more like.  
She had been in the middle of working on the cameras when she got killed, that was why she never texted them about the bellboy.  
It was all starting to make sense- but who killed her? It had been a top secret mission, as cliché as it sounds.  
Nobody knew, nobody but the client and the team.

The phone rang early in the next morning.  
"Ryan." A voice, familiar, sickeningly sweet like coated with a pound of sugar.  
"What do you want, Banjo?"  
"I want to meet, we need to talk about Devon."  
And they did meet, in Shane's house. He never invited people over, other than the ones that were close to him. Like Sara Rubin, his right hand when it came to money related things, and of course keeping his clients in check.

"You look good." Shane purred like a tall, flannel wearing cat.  
"Shut up." Ryan spit the words out, rubbing the bridge of his nose, a faint blush rising on his cheeks for some goddamn ridiculous reason.  
He shouldn't feel flattered. He should feel out of place, annoyed, and most of all terrified. Someone had shot a member of their team, the three who were still breathing would be the next ones to go.  
"I know who killed her."  
Shane cut right to the chase, making Ryan's head yank up fast as lightning.  
"What?" He stuttered.  
"I know who it was, and we're safe."  
"So your goons took care of it then?"  
Ryan felt like he was missing something obivous, sitting in that dark leather armchair in his worn jumper, the most out of place he had felt since the new years party.  
"No." Shane swallowed, eyes releasing their sharp glare from Ryan's own, drifting towards the window in their left. The sky was cloudy, harsh wind was beating the naked branches in the garden.  
"You don't need to know his name, you don't need to know why he killed Devon, you just need to know that you're safe. He won't come for you or TJ, as long as you get out."  
The serious tone didn't suit him, it made his faux hipstery vibe seem like a cover up.  
"What the fuck?"  
Ryan was speechless. He just stared, wide eyed, mouth a bit open. Confusion mixing with anger, and whatever feelings of admiration or flattery he had once felt towards the tall man were so far gone that it almost felt like they had never been there at all.  
"Get out of Chigago, change your name. Don't get involved, that'll only get you killed."

That was it.  
The first plate of shit Shane force fed Ryan.  
The day Ricky Goldsworth was born


	6. The Hungry Ghost

Two years later,  
Late November, 2018

Shane bit his lip as he listened to Sara heatedly monologue about the plan.  
Three sleepless nights after that coffee shop "date" he and Ryan had, they were still far from figuring out how to get rid of Fear.  
Her dark curly hair was messy, the distress on her face was apparent.  
It was stressful to work with criminal geniuses, especially when there were lives on the line.  
"Shane, are you even listening?"  
"Yeah."  
He wasn't. She inhaled sharply and continued talking.

The literal manor Shane lived in was quite serial killer like, if you really tought about it. He had an entire room for taxidermy animals and butterflies in glass frames, his favourite book was 'Satanic Verses', and all in all the decor was really gothic and victorian.  
It didn't line up with the way Shane looked like at all; a lanky, hipstery guy who wore flannels and jean jackets.  
The madness was hidden within.

"...there has to be a way to track him, have you spoken with the tech team since Chigago? We could really use their expertise."  
Shane snapped out of his haze as he heard Sara mention Chigago. That city, his home, he had refused to think about it all for a long time.  
His gut had an odd twist as he tought about that night Devon got killed.  
"No, I haven't."  
That was all he had to say about it. He never quite figured out what happened to her back then, and he had always blamed himself for it. It was, after all, his operation. He knew who did it, he just didn't know why. But it was all in the past now, why scratch open the old wounds?  
"We don't need them though. We kill Tinsley in the next suitable location, and afterwards Fear will come to us. All we need to do is to stay alive until then."  
Sara was a bit bitter over the fact that Shane didn't listen to a word she had said about her plan, but agreed anyway.  
"Call Ryan. Let's get this over with before it's too late." She said, getting up from the armchair she had been nested in the past three hours with a mug of coffee and a laptop, making calls and trying to figure out a pattern in Fear's actions like a madman.  
Shane murmured some sort of a protest under his breath, but she was already gone.

"Ryan." That mellow voice purred on the phone, Ryan could see the smug smirk behind his eyelids as he held the phone on his ear, rushing trough the busy street. It brought back bitter memories.  
"What do you want?" He mumbled from under his scarf.  
"We got a lead on Tinsley, and with 'we' I mean my tech guys here, so I have a simple offer for you;"  
Ryan sighed in defeat as Shane began.  
"You and I, we take Tinsley out together, we both get the profit, and afterwards as our pal Jesse gets all pissed off, we take him out before he can pull the trigger."  
He sounded so pleased with himself, it was sickening.  
"You came up with this in five minutes, didn't you?" Ryan sighed, annoyed.  
"What happens when his folk get us off guard? Dude, this is the dumbest plan I've heard of in years- no, actually this is the dumbest plan I've EVER heard of."  
Shane was silent in his end, searching for words to build a witty comeback with.  
"No. No way. I already refused my client anyway. Before you ask why, it's because I'm not either dumb or suicidal like you."  
Then he ended the call.

It was sometimes like Shane forgot about the general way Ryan was;  
Headstrong, bitter, stubborn.  
But he was also damn pretty, and that was the most painful part.

 

Persuading Ryan wasn't easy.  
It took until the end of the week, and Shane had to use all the cards he had.  
'After all we've been trough?' Was the first one, followed by money offers each bigger than the previous one. But Ryan didn't need money.  
After that, Shane offered some of his many real estates. Ryan refused them all. On Saturday, Shane started the begging. And by Sunday afternoon, Ryan was so sick of it he said yes just to make the man stop calling him.

"Don't worry Ry Guy, it's gonna be so much fun!"  
Shane smiled as Ryan sat down in the limo that Shane picked him up with. Theatrics were his area, and he wasn't holding back anymore. He was, after all, the Freddie Mercury of the underworld.  
"Just shut up before I punch you again." Ryan had to bite his lip to restrain himself, and that just fueled Shane's fire.  
He wanted to say 'make me'.

Tinsley was staying at the Stay On Main Hotel in downtown LA, the drive didn't take too long.  
It was just the two of them now, ready to make the biggest mistake to date.  
"You ready, little guy?" Shane's grin was evergreen, making Ryan's nerves scream like sirens.  
"Yeah." He grunted trough his teeth.  
It was well calculated;  
The staff was bribed, the third floor was empty. There were no cameras. It was perfect, and Shane had never been more proud of his own work.

They stood side by side in the lobby, Shane towering over Ryan, even their outfits complimented each other.  
"In and out, clean and quick."  
Ryan spoke his toughts, recieving a reassuring nod from his partner in crime.  
"This is one man's job, Shane. You sure about this? I'm fine with only one of us going."  
"Whimping out, Bergara?"  
"Shut up."  
And with that, they got into the elevator, beginning their journey towards destruction.

Three knocks.  
It was said that demons knock three times, mocking the holy trinity.  
Shane's eyes were glittering as the footsteps came to open the door. Hungry, menacing grin on his lips. Tinsley was just a pawn in the grand game, and Shane was the king.  
Jesse Fear, of course, was the king of the other side.  
Did that make Ryan the queen? Yes, oh yes it did.

"Can I help you gentlemen?"  
A kind, older man's voice asked as the door opened fully, and Shane's smile turned from frightening to charming in a millisecond.  
"Oh, yes. Me and my husband are on our honeymoon and we locked our keys in our room, can I please use your balcony to climb over there? I'd ask the front desk but we've been bothering them so much this weekend, I'm simply too ashamed to."  
Ryan's mouth hung winde open as he listened to the smooth flow of stinking lies coming from Shane's mouth, so intensely that it took him a good five seconds to realize that the tall man had linked their fingers.  
Ryan's first instinct was to yank his hand off, but that would ruin the cover. Also, Shane had nicely big, warm, smooth hands.  
"Oh, of course." Tinsley seemed a bit bummed, but let the 'couple' in anyway.  
"Thank you kindly." Shane smiled, hand reaching for his belt-  
The door clicked shut, and seconds after Tinsley stood away to open the balcony door, a "chomp" kind of sound broke the air, followed by the thud of the man's body falling against the back wall. Shane had cat like reflecses when it came to shooting people, his hand moved with seemingly supersonic speed from relaxed to action, grabbibg the gun from it's holster and pulling the trigger with a pitch perfect aim.  
It was breathtaking to Ryan.  
Like watching an artist at work.  
Shane bended the frames of Ryan's reality.

"What do we do with the body?"  
Ryan asked, too mesmerized to even ask what the fuck the hand holding was about.  
"A detective going missing is like a fish drowning. We can't just... erase the crime scene, that´ll only draw more attention."  
Shane ran his hand trough his wild mess of a hair as his eyes scanned the room over and over again. Panic had began to spread in him alarmingly fast, making his heart pound in his throat like a war hammer. This, THIS was the point when he realized, his plan was shit. Ryan had been right- of couree he had been! Once again, he did a stellar job in hiding every one of those emotions.  
"Well we can't leave him here- what's more dangerous to our safety here, a missing detective or a fucking blood covered room with probably like, our hair that's fallen off our heads, our footprints in the blood? Shane, we NEED to clean this up!"  
The taller man let out a pensive sigh as he looked at the body once again. It's eyes had began to glaze over, staring into nothingness. Parted lips glossed over with a small layer of blood, skin pale. And in the middle of his forehead, the bullet hole was like a third eye that stared, wide open, black and deep crimson.  
"Besides, Fear will probably have evidence against us if he gets his hands on the scene."  
The splattered cocktail of skull fragments, blood and brains had began to run down on the wall, slowly getting closer to the floor.  
"Fine." Shane said, turning to face Ryan again, determination in his angered eyes. "Call the guys. Clean this up, I'll go to Home Depot to buy some canisters."  
Ryan's eyes lit up like a christmas tree as he put together the plan in his head. The feelings were mixed- he wasn't a fan of dead bodies, just making them that way, and soon he'd be forced to cut one to pieces and destroy in a tub of acid.  
He shouldn't have been so excited, yet this nightmare of a job gone wrong had turned into a freaky Breaking Bad roleplay really fast.  
He agreed with a half smirk, half a horrified expression of dread.  
"I'll get the Hydrofluoric acid."

Brent- one of the guys Ryan had called, an expert of sorts in body disposal, came in within the next forty minutes. Around the same time Shane returned with the plastic tanks.  
"They didn't have anything bigger, so I think we're gonna have to cut our old pal Tinsley here in half."  
He set the tanks aside by the door, noticing the newcomer in the room.  
"Oh, you must be our disposal guy."  
He smiled charmingly, offering a hand. Brent shook it, already wearing rubber gloves and one of those white overalls- he looked like he came straight from a meth lab.  
Ryan shifted awkwardly as he stood, annoyed. He was supposed to hate Shane after everything they had been trough, he generally disliked him, but hell, he was sometimes so disgustingly nice! The devil in disguise as an angel.  
"What's the plan here?" He snapped out of the oddly lustful glare, shaking the thoughts from his head. Shane turned to him immediately, a ghost of the smile still lingering along his features. Tall, lanky, hipstery, murderous.  
Dreamy.  
Stop Ryan, for fuck's sake!  
"The plan, my sweet boy, is that overall guy here takes his little saw and our dearest C.C. to a nice retreat in the bathroom tub, puts his arms and legs in this tank here, and his torso and head in the other one. By then, I'm sure you'll be all set with the acid, so we'll just give him a nice 'lil bath until all that remains is mush."  
He monologued like he was proud- he probably was. With a wide smile and that sly glimmer in his amber eyes. For a moment Ryan couldn't help but stare.  
"Okay." He finally coughed it out. Blunt, gray, flat reply.  
Brent turned away to get the body, signaling the few other men in similar suits with a hand movement. It was silent for a while, apart from the swish of the overalls, stomp of carefully placed feet, and a low grunting as the men lifted the body up and took it to the bathroom where it'd be easier to clean up.  
"Proud of yourself?"  
Ryan walked to stand by his tall companion, eyes tightly placed on the working men. Shane's presence alone was draining, his body was like a tall and thin furnace, radiating with warmth, or like a magnet, pulling Ryan's eyes towards it to just take it all in while he could. Shane seemed to be always towering in the corner, if not of Ryan's eye then the corner of his mind like a spirit. He tried to block it, build walls around it and always ended up feeding the hungry ghost.  
"I am, how could you tell?"  
The sarcasm coated his words like frosting on an expensive cake.  
"You have a look- that stupid smug smirk. Makes me want to kick your teeth in."  
Ryan smiled a little as he heard the little laugh that followed his carefully picked words.


	7. D is for Dangerous

The sky was starless, black outside of the city limit, the bright lights of LA were just a glowing bulb in the horizon.  
It was almost two in the morning, Shane was biting his nails as the white van drove silently on the highway.  
Brent was in the back with one of his guys, keeping the canisters safe and still- nobody wanted to scrub two hundred pounds of human mush and acid from the van floor.  
Ryan was driving, eyes sharp and without a hint of sleepiness.  
"How much further do you think we need to drive?"  
Shane broke the heavy silence.  
"At least thirty more miles into the wasteland, just to be safe. Brent said he knows a place."  
The road was deserted, a lone pair of taillights shone dimly somewhere far in front of them like two red eyes in the dark. The road seemed to stretch infinitely, and the silence in the car was giving Shane anxiety.  
"Can't we at least turn on the radio?"  
He asked, recieving a glare from the shorter man in his brown jacket.  
"They only play shitty christmas songs this time of the year. Let's pass."

Half an hour or so later, Brent knocked on the small window on the dividing wall in between the front and the back of the van. They were almost there.  
Ryan took the next right, a badly kept gravel road towards a rocky wasteland.  
"Two miles more. There's a wellhouse from the fifties somewhere by this road, ground is soft there."  
Ryan clarified as Shane looked once again a little bummed out.  
Or maybe that was his default face, Ryan really couldn't tell anymore.

They were there. The sky was still black and starless as they all got out of the sweaty van.  
"So do we bury the acid-meat soup, or do we just leave it here for vultures?"  
Shane spoke as he stretched his long limbs after sitting still so long. Ryan spared him another one of those fed up glares.  
"What do you think, idiot? It's literal ACID, dude. No vulture on planet earth could digest that and live."  
Shane rolled his eyes.  
"We bury it. Two, maybe three separate holes. Shane digs one, Mark and I each dig one. Ryan, you get the barrels."  
Brent instructed, and even tough he was hired to do the job and technically wasn't in charge, Ryan and Shane both obeyed. It wasn't like they knew any better.

It was sweaty work, thank god they did it in the shade of the night. Shane hadn't had to dig anything since his boyscout days, and it really didn't do good on his back.  
Ryan in the other hand had no problem in lifting the fifty pound barrels up, his arms were basically the size of logs. The problem was with getting them down from the back of the van without spilling the contents on himself.  
"Need any help with that?"  
Shane offered as he had finished with his hole, looking at the way Ryan measured the back of the truck with his gaze, trying to come up with a plan.  
"Not from you, I don't."  
He murmured, refusing to even look at Shane, supposedly too busy with his planning.  
"Why are you like that, I mean seriously, it's been two and a half fucking years! Plus you already punched me- how much more revenge do you need?"  
Confusion was something Shane showed rarely, but now it was overflowing. It seemed like his talent in hiding emotions had given up when it came to Ryan Bergara.  
"Why am I like this? So you expect me to be all sugar and spice after you literally tore my life apart? Think again, genius."  
Ryan's stare was razor sharp, but Shane held it for a long moment.  
"Let me just fucking help you with the barrels so we can be done with this."  
He sighed.  
And Ryan, even tough he really didn't want to, let him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was yet another sinfully short one, but the next chapter is gonna be a the normal length (2k+ words)
> 
> Here´s a mood song for it!   
> https://youtu.be/yEH5jReEkSk  
> (it´s my fave song of all the songs ever btw)


	8. Playing With Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last flashback chapter, I promise

Two years earlier,  
June 2016

Ryan had tried to reach him for four months, it seemed like Shane had disappeared for good.  
After that ominous conversation about Devon in February, Shane hadn't been in touch. He had changed his phone number, moved to god knows where and taken everything he had with him.

Then there was the voicemail.

"Hey Ry Guy, It's been a while, wanna grab a coffee? Call me back. It's Banjo, by the way."

Talking like they were old friends? Disgusting. Ryan was more than ready to break the man's neck if he'd keep on pulling shit like that. He wanted to ignore the call, as stupid and teenage like it sounded. He was too pissed off and confused, after being left there with a million questions for months on end.  
But as he had no self control, of course he called back.  
It was a short conversation, as Shane was seemingly in the middle of baggage registration in the airport, almost too busy to talk at all.  
"Hey buddy!" He sounded like he was talking to a dog, making Ryan grind his teeth so hard he was about to break them.  
"What the fuck, McClintock- oh sorry, I meant Madej. That's your real name, isn't it?"  
The line went silent as Shane searched his mind for any possible ways for Ryan to have figured that out.  
"Woah, no hello or anything? That's kind of rude."  
"You don't deserve a hello, you deserve a punch in the face!"  
A snort, followed by silence. Light chatter filled the air from Shane's end, muffled and far away. Ryan was squeezing his hand to a fist, knuckles white as he gave the anger room to settle.  
"How hard would it have been to tell me you were going to disappear?"  
His voice cracked, not because he was sad, hell no. He was furious.  
"I didn't disappear, you idiot! Haven't you ever heard of well calculated buisness trips? In our profession, those aren't very rare."  
Now it was apparent that Shane's attention was directed to somewhere else, his voice was flat.  
"Yeah, okay, fine. Buisness trip or not, even a text would have made me a little less murderous!"  
"Oh come on, you're always murderous."  
They did sound like an old married couple- Devon had been right.  
Devon.  
Ryan closed his eyes and gathered his toughts.  
"What happened to Devon?"  
He asked, voice hoarse and cold. Shane seemed a little taken back, or maybe he was occupied with getting on his flight, there was no way of knowing.  
"You don't need to know. We've been over this."  
Yeah, he was probably occupied with the flight.  
"Then why did you want to meet? Am I some fucking tinder date to you now?!"  
"Chill out, for fuck's sake! I just wanted to see how you're doing, you know, I tought we could be friends."  
"Bullshit."  
It was silent again, for maybe fifteen agonising seconds. Then Shane spoke again;  
"How did you know my name?"  
He asked it like it was any question, voice smooth and calm. Ryan was a little taken back by that.  
"I've done some digging."  
Was the best answer he could come up with.  
"Impressive. I've really got to go now tough, let's get that coffee tomorrow. I'll text you the time and place."  
The call cut out before Ryan could protest.

They sat down, facing each other. It was the edge of Chigago, a quiet little diner standing by the highway.  
The only other customer was a purple haired woman, sitting far in the other side.  
Shane ordered a hotdog. Ryan got a glass of water.  
"Tell me about Devon's death." He started talking as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.  
"Woah, no small talk? Damn it Ryan."  
Shane tried to make the conversation lighter- failing miserably judging by the murderous look in Ryan's eyes.  
"Ugh, fine. Let's make a deal; you tell me what details you dug up about my private life, I tell you who killed Devon. Deal?"  
He was up to something, Ryan could sense it.  
"Fine." He agreed anyway.  
"It took months, but by bribing the right people, by doing hours and hours of research, I got my hands on some pretty juicy files."  
Shane swallowed uncomfortably as he listened, feeling oddly voulnerable.  
"What do you know?" He asked with a tone that was a little too serious for him.  
"I know that your real name is Shane Alexander Madej, you were born on May 16th, 1986 in Illinois, and you're in deep shit when it comes to your criminal record. In other words, I could bring you down with the information I have."  
Ryan flashed a menacing smile. Shane answered it with a chuckle.  
"You don't own shit." His voice was low as he leaned closer to Ryan over the table. The tension in between them was heavy, Ryan's breathing trembled as he felt Shane's presence dominant over his own.  
They stared each other in the eyes, Shane's nose inches from Ryan's as he was leaning over the narrow table.  
"You know why?" He asked, licking his dry lips as he yanked his body quickly off his booth, triggering Ryan's fight or flight responce. They were both up in seconds, still as statues, staring each other down.  
"Because..." Shane's breathing was hot, he took two slow steps so he was inches away from his shorter counterpart.  
"...You don't have shit."  
Their lips were barely apart, eyes staring each other down like a couple of tigers battling over dominance.  
The click of the cuffs broke the electricy in between them, Ryan felt the cool metal around his wrist replace the heat of Shane's body within one second.  
He was cuffed to the table.  
Shane grinned like he was victorious, turning away on his heels, straight out of the front door.  
The purple haired woman smirked as she sipped the last of her coffee, following Shane out to a black car.  
Ryan just stared in a daze as they drove away.

 

"I'm sorry, Ryan."  
He actually did sound sorry. Ryan felt his throat tighten as the car turned to his street.  
The pilar of smoke was thick and black, hot ash was floating in the wind.  
"What have you done?" He didn't know if it was the smoke or the tears, but his eyes were burning.  
"I couldn't let you have those files, that's fairly obivous, don't you think? Didn't your mama teach you, if you play with fire you might get buned."  
Shane's voice was dry.  
The white walls of the house had blackened, thick smoke poured from the windows. Flashes of red and orange danced inside trough the missing front door, it had been kicked in before the fire had started.  
"I hate you." Was all that Ryan could think of, all he could say. In that moment, he knew no other words.  
"That's too bad, I really started to warm up to you. Well, it's always like that with pets, isn't it."  
Ryan's blood was boiling, his hands shook as he squeezed the phone on his ear. The fire department had just arrived, a crowd of people watched as they tried to put the fire out.  
"I told you about the files... now tell me, who killed Devon?"  
The anger radiated from his voice, from his expression. The knot in his throat tightened as he heard the amused voice answer;  
"Oh baby, haven't you realized? I'm a dirty, dirty liar."  
The call cut off.  
And Ryan started to cry.

That was it;  
He had lost his name.  
His house.  
All of his earthly posessions.  
Shane hadn't only burnt down his house, he had robbed him blind.

Phoenixes rise from their ashes, and if someone fit that worn out, cliché metaphor, it was Ryan Steven Bergara.

Exept it wasn't, no. Ryan Steven Bergara was dead.  
Ricky Goldsworth was what rose from his ashes.  
Ricky Goldsworth, the emperor of LA's underworld.  
Ricky Goldsworth, whose heart turned to stone as he watched his life slip trough his fingers on that June afternoon.

He moved back to LA after that. He didn't go to his family tough, he couldn't. At first he was afraid that he'd lose them too if he got too close.  
Like he had lost everything else.  
He started from scratch, with nothing but Francesca Norris, his secritary by his side.  
She found him small jobs, invidual clients, fast cash.  
He built a reputation in LA almost as fast as he had lost the one of 'Night Night' Bergara in Chigago.  
From a small office in a shitty neighbourhood to one in downtown, he was fast to pave a path to the top.  
And soon he had a huge house, a front operation as an accountant, clients lining up for months.  
And in the middle of all that, he was always bitter.  
He wouldn't be there if it wasn't for Shane, and every day he hoped that wherever he was in the world, Shane Madej knew his name and was at least a little salty. Just a bit, because it was him who gave Ryan the push he needed.  
"Thank you for the tragedy, Shane Madej. I will return it someday."


	9. Bad Luck

Late November, 2018

Tinsley was safely in the dirt as the sun began to rise. Ryan sighed as he fell back on the drivers seat, eyes closed tight. His skin was clammy of sweat, shirt sticking to him uncomfortably.  
"It's a two hours drive home, man... I can't do that right now."  
He informed Shane as he climbed into the shotgun seat, hair a mess, dirt under his fingernails. His flannel was tied up around his waist, a white tee also clinging to his body. It was kind of hot.  
"What, so you're expecting me to drive?"  
Shane's voice was tired, yet oddly heated as he gave Ryan a sharp glare.  
"Not gonna happen, buckaroo."  
Brent and Mark were in no condition to drive either. None of them had slept in over 30 hours, it was starting to weight on them. On a 60mph road, it would be seriously dangerous as well.  
"Fuck, fine. We'll sleep in the car."  
Ryan grunted, turning his shoulder to Shane as he desperately tried to forget about the tall man's existence.  
"What? No way, I'm not gonna fuck my back up just because you're too stingy to get a motel room!"  
Shane's raving was hard to ignore.  
"Well boo hoo, you're a literal six feet tall baby, Madej."  
"Six feet four." He corrected.  
"Fuck off."

Twenty minutes passed, and the van parked in front of the shittiest motel any of the four had ever seen;  
The paint was peeling off the walls, the windows were covered in sand dust.  
"Are you sure it's not like... abandoned?"  
Shane mumbled, eyes barely open.  
"Google maps says it's not. Anyway, as long as they have working showers, I'm gonna be really happy."  
It was seven in the morning, the receptionist had just sat down with a coffee cup, irritated look in her eyes.  
"Three rooms please." Ryan's voice was irritated too.  
"Name?"  
"It's Ricky Goldsworth."  
They had planned on Brent and Mark sharing a room (because they actually got along well) and him and Shane getting rooms for themselves, alone, SEPERATELY.  
And that all went down the drain as Ryan began to pay;  
"Cash only." The woman muttered as Ryan took his credit card from his wallet.  
"What? You've got to be fucking kidding me ma'am, the year is 2018!"  
He turned to look at the three men behind him, Brent's eyes were closed as he leaned on the doorframe, Mark sat in the lone chair by the empty wending machine, and Shane was standing there looking like a zombie.  
"Cash only." She repeated, growing even more annoyed at this 'disrespectful young man'.  
"Got any cash, guys?"  
Brent checked his wallet, only finding a crumpled five-dollar bill. Mark had twenty bucks in his jacket pocket. Shane went to check the car for parking money leftovers and came back with seven dollars (in cents, so his hands were basically full).  
They could only afford two rooms.

"I'll go with Brent." Ryan was quick to announce, like a child reserving a tent with his best friend.  
"No disrespect man, but I think you and Shane got some shit to comb trough. This is a good oppotunity, if you don't kill each other first."  
Brent really seemed to enjoy the expression of defeated rage rise up in Ryan's tired eyes. The short man was too tired to protest.  
"Fuck you, dude." He mumbled and threw the other key to Mark.  
It was a quite small motel with no more than thirteen rooms lined up to a corridor. Ryan and Shane got the eleventh one.  
"What the actual FUCK?! God hates me, he really does." Ryan cried out as he got in the room.  
It had just one bed.  
"Don't pull a no homo on me, Bergara. It's a just a goddamn double bed."  
Shane's voice was so tired, he was so full of Ryan's shit (it was usually the other way around).  
"Jesus, I'd rather sleep in the car than next to your lanky ass."  
"Wow, that's rude."  
Shane laughed, throwing his jacket on a chair that stood under the window.  
"I'll go take a shower." Ryan just mumbled like a moody child and disappeared into the small bathroom, slamming the door shut agressively.

By the time he came back fifteen minutes later, Shane was in the bed, on his phone.  
"Put a shirt on for fuck's sake!"  
Ryan sounded almost horrified.  
"It's all sweaty, dirty and disgusting, no way."  
He didn't even take his eyes away from the screen. Ryan's moist hair was falling over his eyes, his face was beginning to feel hot and he didn't know if it was the shower's fault or not.  
"I'm not gonna get in a same bed with you when you're naked, dude."  
"I tought you liked guys?" Shane laughed, he was literally the only person to laugh at his jokes ever. Well, Sara did sometimes, but chances were that she just tried to be polite.  
Ryan was biting the inside of his cheek as his sleep deprivated brain tried to come up with a comeback of any kind.  
"Well yeah, but I definitely don't like you!" He wanted to run back to the bathroom, he wanted to go wake Brent up and tell him to exchange the people they had to sleep in the same bed with. He'd take Brent, he'd take mark, but Shane? That was torture, that man was radiating with warmth, Ryan would probably roll to his side in his sleep because of that factor alone.  
"If it's such a big deal, go sleep in the car. You'll probably die in the heat within three hours, good luck."  
Shane's voice had lost most of the amusement, he set his phone on the nightstand and plugged it into his charger. Then he just rolled over, not minding the paniced look on Ryan's face at all. It was like some part of him still enjoyed seeing him like that, with a mixture of terror and irritation making his eyes fiery, with his muscles tensed and jaw set tight.  
"Well, I'm gonna sleep now, so make your decision fast. I don't wanna wake up to you slamming doors."  
Shane muttered as he wrapped himself into the covers, bare feet peeking from over the back of the bed. He was too tall for basically every man made object.  
"Jesus fucking christ, fine." Ryan whined, laying down on the very edge of the bed. He knew he was acting like a child, and he wondered how in the world it all got to this point.  
Three years ago he was free of the eternal pain in his ass called Shane Alexander Madej, year later he wanted to strangle the man with his own bare hands. Now they were sleeping in the same bed.

Shane was a snorer.  
God, one more irritating and oddly attractive trait to add in Ryan's very, very long list.  
The sun came trough the blinds, making it hard for Ryan to fall asleep. It was almost midday when he finally did, the dreams he sunk into were distracted and frail. He would wake a few times, finding himself from closer to Shane's side than his own, but quickly reset himself in the far end.

The evening was hot and the air in the motel room was dry.  
Ryan felt warm skin brush against his arm in the growing shade as the sun outside began to go down. The greasy yellow wallpaper in the room looked a shade of dark gold, pure sunlight still poured from between the lowest few slats, yellow light spilling inside, painting lines on the laminate floor.  
He had slept a good seven and a half hours, it was almost eight o'clock. Shane was still deep in slumber, eyes moving under his lids. He was dreaming like a six feet four tall puppy.  
The duvet wasn't covering his chest, it was too hot for that, and as Ryan got himself up to sit he could see them in the dim light;  
Scars, not too visible, not too fresh. Long, like Shane's skin had been ripped apart from places, shaped like lightning. They ran along his side, over his ribs, rimmed with small dots from the stitches.  
The type of scars you'd get from say, getting the shit kicked out of you. From hard leather boots bounding on his ribs with full force, again and again and again. His bones must have been shattered like glass when that happened.

Ryan's stomach turned as he tought of it- not that Shane didn't deserve to be treated like a bag of garbage. Emotional pain was something Ryan always wished Shane would experience, but something like this was a little too much. Anyway, the scars were maybe ten years old, Shane had had them long before they even met.  
Apart from those white ripples all over his skin, the man looked like he was straight from a renaissance painting. His brown hair was fluffy, moles like constellations on his body, and that peaceful expression on his softly pink lips made Ryan a little bit weak in the knees.  
He found himself staring at Shane like a painting in an art gallery, quickly shaking the disgustingly fluffy toughts from his head. He was a dangerous man, a professional killer, he reminded himself on every moment of weakness.

The past him from a year or two ago would have probably been thinking about suffocating Shane with a pillow then. It would have been relatively easy, even though Shane was bigger than him. Ryan had more muscle mass, he would have been able to restrain the lanky man using only one arm, probably.  
But that wasn't him anymore. And that made Ryan a little uneasy; He would rather want to kill Shane Madej than kiss him, because the latter was more painful than watching his own house burn down. It was probably the most painful urge to have, because he could never do that. He would rather jump off a bridge than fall in love with the man who ruined his life.

A knock on the door woke Ryan up from his toughts and Shane from his sleep.  
"Let's go! Come on, we'll wait in the car. there's a Burger King by the highway only like forty minutes drive away."  
It was Brent. Shane rubbed his eyes, so soft and childish. That was exactly what Ryan hated the most about the man- how absolutely fucking adorable he sometimes was without even noticing it. Sometimes though, it was apparent that Shane took advantage of the apparent crush Ryan had on him. like that time in the diner two years ago.  
There it was, the hatred. Every bad thing Shane had ever done surfaced in Ryan's mind, making him grind his teeth and turn his back, searching for his jeans and socks so they could leave.

"Morning." Shane mumbled, getting up to sit as well. Ryan just huffed at him.  
"What did i do to piss you off now- did i say somethig in my sleep?" He laughed, but Ryan's humor had died a long time ago.  
"Just dress up. Mark and Brent are waiting in the car."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so cheesy it´s actually disgusting but believe me i´m trying my very best...  
> Also i myself noticed (before anyone points it out) how similiar the idea of them being forced to sleep in the same bed in a motel is with the plot of The Bizarre Roadtrip of a Missing Family by icantwritegood here on AO3 (it´s actually the best shyan fic I´ve ever read, check it out) so um sorry ´bout that if it´s distracting or something


	10. Devon

Before they walked out the door, Ryan turned to face Shane- a move that took the both of them by surprise.  
"Devon." Ryan's voice was shallow, he did a good job on hiding every drop of emotion considering how he was basically overflowing on the inside.  
"You never told me who killed her."  
His voice was a little demanding, cold and stiff as sole rock.  
Shane shifted on his feet, caught so off guard he didn't really know what he was supposed to do with himself.  
He wanted to brush it off with a witty one-liner, get in the car and quickly get the Fear thing dealt with so he wouldn't have to stand Ryan anymore.  
But the short man blocked the doorway, his frame looking bigger, tougher, stronger than usually. Some sort of a scaring tactic probably, but Shane felt like he was standing next to a cute little kitten all the same. Upset and angry little kitten, with razor sharp claws ready to claw Shane's eyes out of his thick skull.  
"Look, buddy, can we do this some other time?" He suggested, voice annoyingly airy. The last thing Shane wanted was to dig the rotten corpse of their last mess up and put it on trial.  
"We've waited long enough."  
Ryan spit the sentence out, grinding his teeth so hard that the words were but sharp hisses as he poked Shane painfully in between the ribs. The tall man didn't wince, just maintained the now very tense eyecontact. His face had lost the glee and ease, he looked a little scarily blank.  
"You really want to do this now? With Mark and Brent in the car and all?"  
He tried one more time, recieving a glare so sharp it could have cut trough glass.  
"Fuck, fine." Shane sighed, rubbing his temples as if resetting his brains, searching for words that wouldn't lead to Ryan punching him in the face- again.  
The shorter man's expression was a little less bloodthirsty now, anticipation making his features softer.

"It was Fear. well no, the guy who pulled the trigger was working for him. He was supposed to get us all but fucked up somehow, I dunno. Don't really remember those dumb little details anyway."  
"What?" Ryan's eyes were the size of dinner plates, his voice cracked as he took a shaky breath in. Shane's eyes showed no emotion, no empathy. And Ryan felt an urge to cry.  
"I never told you because knowing you, you'd just get invested in this crazy shit and, well, get yourself shot in the head too. That old crow has been after me for ten years, Ryan. I tought he had lost me after I changed my name, apparently not."  
The disbelief didn't leave Ryan's eyes, they were burning with tears of anger and sadness.  
"You... you fucking dickhead..." He managed to stutter, eyes falling away from that sharp and surprisingly intimate eyecontact. If it was Fear all along, why the fuck did Shane wrap him into this Tinsley mess after Ryan already dismissed the hit from his client? This was honestly too much, he wanted to throw up.  
"You've got nothing else to say? No questions or anything?" Shane fought back an urge to make a joke, because that was what he always did in situations where the air was just too heavy, where the tension was the negative kind.  
"Why did you drag me into this, if it was exactly what you avoided in the first place?"  
The pure disgust on Ryan's face didn't suit him, it made him look more mature, more scary, more killer-like. and for the first time after the time he burned Ryan's house down, Shane felt a twist of quilt in his stomach. but his eyes staid the same, without a hint of emotion.  
"Jesse Fear is an intelligent man, Ryan. he would have got you anyway. My thinking was, maybe if you're with me in this I've got some chances in keeping an eye on you."  
"But WHY, you absolute fucknut?! WHY would he get me, I've never even met the man!"

"Because I'm- I... because I like you, Ryan, that's why. just drop it, all right?"

A silence, painfully shocked one.  
"You... you what?"  
There were tears in his dark eyes now, shadow had swallowed the room whole as the sun had already set. And Shane's facade of expressionless staring broke apart as well, he swallowed the chunk that rose to his throat as he wished he hadn't said anything.  
"I said drop it, so do."  
He mumbled, pushing Ryan aside from the door and opening it with haste.  
The second his feet touched the hallway floor, a tight grip dug into his arm. Ryan yanked him back, eyes so full of emotion they looked like little pools of rainwater.  
"You... you do?" His voice was timid, soft, and oddly enough a little hurt. Shane had never seen him like that- so emotional, so woulnerable, so unbelievably real. And he couldn't say a word, he found no voice to speak with. Ryan's fingers were so warm trough the sleeve of his flannel, he could almost feel the blood run trough his veins like velvet.  
"I do." He finally confirmed with a silent, even a little shy voice. Then he swallowed painfully, eyes too full of something recembling shame to look into Ryan's eyes again.  
Those eyes. Those fucking eyes.

They stood there, half inside the room, half in the hallway for a while. A while that could have been seconds or minutes, time didn't really matter then.  
They just were, Ryan's arm refusing to let go of Shane's sleeve. A pressure, odd kind of soft electricity radiated in between them, like the air during a thunderstorm. They were breathing that moment in hungrily, with both their lungs and their eyes; encraving each others warmth into their memories, studying this new found, less aggressive way to just be.  
"I like you too." Ryan finally whispered.  
It was like they were children again, confessing their first crushes.  
But they were full grown adult men instead, and something about the feeling was so pure, so raw that it made the situation feel completely new and alien. Maybe it was the way they had despised each other- or well, Ryan had despised Shane. Maybe it was the relief after Shane finally spoke about Devon. Or the way Ryan had found a whole new way to look at him, softly, with something recembling kindness instead of boiling rage.  
Whatever it was, it was new.  
And it made them both feel dizzy and foolish, but so lucky and so childish as well.

"What's the fucking hold up?!"  
Brent. Of course it was Brent. The yellow ceiling lights flushed over his slumped figure, and Ryan yanked his hand off of Shane's arm so fast that the fabric made a little 'swish' sound.  
"We're coming!" Shane smiled with that radiating glee as Ryan couldn't quite form actual words yet.  
"It's been fifteen minutes, man. I'm starving! You guys better pay us extra for this." He left as fast as he had appeared. And they were left there with a wave of heat flushing over their faces.  
"Man, this is weird." Shane finally mumbled, looking down.  
"Yeah." Ryan agreed. They staid for a few more seconds before Ryan got out of the room and locked the door. They made it to the front desk together, without a word.


	11. Grim Reaper

11 years earlier,  
2007

Shane Madej was 21 years old, he looked like the most stereotypical nerd from an early 2000s high school comedy flick.  
Nothing made him too special, he was taller than most, funny, kinda cute, he cut his own hair.  
And he killed people to pay off his student loans.

How he got into that was not important- well, it was complicated.  
He just did some digging on the internet one time, found himself on a shady site, emailed some people, made connections. His intentions weren't to become an assassin at first, hell no. He just tought that there were easy ways in the word to make a quick buck. He tought of making drug deliveries at first. It was fine, he never used the product on himself or got caught with bags of coke under the backseat of his car. He actually had a huge fear related to heroin, so it was easy for him to keep his hands off. He was charming and nice, it was esy for him to build up a reputation among the lowlife. After a few months of working as a drug uber, there was a weird email in his 'buisness' inbox.

"Seeking for a helping hand. Email back to this address if interested in clean up work.  
5000$/hit

J.G.F"

Shane assumed that the so called clean up work would be mostly drug related, well, he was naive and young.  
He didn't even need to consider emailing back, of course he did for that amount of money. What he got back was an address;  
Pennhurst State School and Hospital  
1205 Commonwealth Dr, Spring City  
He would stay for two months.

The flight to Pennsylvania was only a two hours nuisance. He was supposedly flying there to meet some friends.  
This 'friend' of his was in reality the most dangerous man he'd ever come in contact with, doctor Jesse Fear.

They agreed on meeting in his office after visiting time.  
Shane was nervous. This was the biggest job offer he had ever had, honest work or not. Nobody paid this much anywhere, and he wasn't going to fuck this up.  
The hallways alone felt pressing, his anxiety was feeding off of the peeling, old wallpapers in the long hallways. He met barely anyone on his way to the Mayflower Hall.

A white haired man sat in a leather chair in a third story office.  
His voice was dry and cold.  
The meeting would be a bit of a blur to Shane afterwards; he had been honestly a little too scared of the words that came out of the old man's mouth to remember them afterwards.  
It wasn't drug work, no.  
It was killing people he went there to do, unconsicously of course, but at that point he couldn't really decline. Doing that would probably get Shane killed instead, as he now knew about the more twisted side of Pennhurst State Hospital. He felt like Satan himself had just employed him, and as he recieved the case with his brand new gun in it with shaking hands, his mind compared it to a grim reaper recieving his first ever scythe.  
The darkness was beginning to swallow him then, and it would continue to eat him alive for the rest of his life if he wouldn't embrace it.  
So he took the job.

His first victims were a man and a woman. The first time he shot anyone. The first time he took a life.  
He knew where they were and when, the perks of his boss being one of the highest up doctors in the hospital. He was hiding in plain sight as a "medical student".  
The targets were a nurse and a doctor who had witnessed something go down, something that would easily get Fear locked up for the rest of his life. Shane never knew what it was, he just followed orders.  
He shot the man in the head before he even noticed Shane was there in the room with them. His name was Jeff, he only learned that because of what the woman cried out as her last words as she watched the man fall, brains and blood splattering on the walls with the force of thunder and lightning;  
"Please... Jeff!"  
Her name was Bri. She hadn't been older than twenty five, brunette hair and dark eyes that continued to haunt Shane's nightmares for years after he pulled the trigger. Those terrified eyes, too scared to even produce tears.  
He never learned the names of his victims after that.  
A murder-suicide, that's what he framed it as. Jeff didn't want to see the love of his life with anyone else, he'd rather watch her die. Such a tragedy.

He did the job well, taken how it made him want to throw up every time he squeezed the gun in his cold hands.  
He framed them all as suicides when he did them in the hospital grounds. Overdoses, hangings, some he even pushed off balconies. The highest ranked hospital in staff suicides.

Then there was the time everything went south;  
Fear paid him to kill a nine year old patient from the closed ward. He had announced without emotion, without regret. Cold as a marble statue. Shane obivously wanted to know why, what in the word had this child done that would lead to this? Of course it was brushed off as 'not important'. And of course Shane declined, they were talking about a mentally ill child!  
But one cannot simply quit as an assassin, he came to learn that quite painfully.

That night he packed his bags and took a taxi to the airport, he hadn't even said a word to Fear about leaving. He was smart like that. And Fear didn't know where he was from, or even what his real name was, he had just gone by as 'Legs' on the job.  
But somehow someone knew.  
A lingering taste of dread, something a little different from the one Shane got after a kill. More concrete, there was no bitter aftertaste of quit involved.  
Just plain old fear, something he hadn't really felt since he was a child.

Three men in dark hoodies, how fucking cliché. He hadn't imagined to die that way, not ever.

He took a stab to the elbow that night, among about twenty kicks to the ribs before the cops pulled up and the dark figures fleed the scene.  
He had a punctured lung, five fractured ribs and a concussion.  
But he was alive.

That's the story behind the birth of Banjo McClintock-  
The Grim Reaper of Chicago.  
Death on two legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one, forgive me! Also I promised that Playing With Fire was the last throwback chapter and here I am making up excuses... well, we need a Banjo backstory, right?


	12. Drive

Eleven years later

It had never been awkward after that little moment in the motel hallway, more like pressingly tense.  
The car ride to the burger king by the highway had been quiet, as Brent and Shane switched seats. They ate in relative silence as well, afterwards Ryan drew out the rest of the cash he owed Mark and Brent (20% of the entire desposal gig he had promised after it was done), and dropped them off in the edge of LA.

He sat back in the car to drive Shane home- or where ever it was he wanted to get out at. It was intense, yet somehow familiar.  
"Since when?" Ryan asked before turning the key in the ignition again.  
"Huh?"  
"Since when have you... liked me?"  
He clarified, eyes nailed to his fingers tapping on the steering wheel.  
"Liked is such a stupid word for it, I mean seriously, I'm 32 years old..."  
Shane muttered a shitty defense as Ryan grew annoyed all over again.  
"That's the word I recall you using in the first place, so suck it up big guy."  
To that, Shane just huffed. A small noise of disapproval, kind of sweet of him not to throw a sarcastic fit of half insults masked as jokes, as always.  
"Well?" Ryan was actually curious. Burningly curious in fact, and he made a mental promise to himself not to start the car before Shane spit it out.  
"Jeez, Ryan, what's with the interrogation?"  
"Can't you just fucking tell me before I pop a vein or something?"  
Another silence fell as Shane grinned a little, not even trying to hide it this time.  
"Since December 30th, 2015. Happy? Can we go now?"  
He muttered trough his fading smile.  
"Seriously?" Ryan tought he was joking at first, a little alarmed as he realized how his first feelings towards Shane had been irritation and slight anger.  
"Yeah, get over it and start the car."  
He couldn't help to feel a little flattered, also a bit curious about what exactly about him had been so appealing to a man like Shane Madej. Was it his looks? Certainly, because as Ryan could recall, he had been quite rude to Shane the night they met. Or maybe he was into that, fucking weirdo. Ryan made a little 'hm' noise as he smiled a little, starting the car.  
It was a pleasant feeling, and that had become rare. He found himself angry, stressed or annoyed more often than was probably healthy, and when it came to Shane he often felt all three of the emotions at once.  
"Where do I drop you off?" He asked as the van started to move smoothly on the pavement. His voice was a little groggy out of the awe he was trying to push away to the back of his skull.  
It was almost midnight.  
"I don't know if you remember from under that dreamy haze of yours, but there's a price on the both of our heads right now. I'm not trying to freak you out, frankly, it's just that I really don't feel like dying tonight."  
Shane's voice had no emotion, or maybe a hint of amusement, what was disturbing enough all by itself. Ryan was really close to pushing the breaks down just as he had exited the parking lot, and having a panic attack right there in the middle of a busy street. He had forgotten all about the Fear situation, what sounds impossible because who would forget about someone wanting to kill them?  
He made a little laugh, forced and dry. He did that when he got really scared.  
"Chill, man. It's gonna be fine, let's just make some calls, keep close to backup if the hit squad gets to us before we can get to them."  
Shane sounded like he was talking about something casual, like weather or some shit. They were lucky that the lights were red on the street they were at, otherwise Ryan would have probably driven the car to a brick wall out of pure anxiety.  
"We're gonna get murked by a guy whose last name is Fear, Shane! Fucking Fear! And you're just... just being you!"  
The terrified expression on his face was genuine. It was actually hard for him to keep his focus on the traffic.  
"Chill, we ain't gonna get murked by a dude who's like a million years older than us. He's got no chance. Like I said, let's just keep together, all right?"  
Shane scoffed, seemingly enjoying himself. Hell, how was he like that? So apathetic and numb towards all bodily danger.  
"I don't know if you're being agist, stupid or really ignorant right now, but it's pissing me off. Also don't you dare use this situation as an excuse to get to stay at my place, because it's not gonna happen."  
Ryan's knuckles were white, he squeezed the steering wheel so hard.  
"I wasn't trying to, jesus christ you're paranoid! I was thinking a hotel room or something. Public places are great if you try not to get murked."  
The lights changed, and Ryan forced himself to function like a normal adult in the traffic. He was scared.  
"You never answered me."  
Ryan pointed out before the heavy silence could fall on them again. It had been silent all day, he couldn't stand it anymore. Shane was drumming his fingers against his tigh, dirt still visible under his fingernails. It was kind of gross how he hadn't showered in three days.  
"Huh?" Seemed to be the tall man's default responce to everything now, his eyes darted to Ryan's worried face from the dashboard he had been intensely staring at.  
"Where do I drop you off. You seriously have the memory of a godfish."  
There wasn't a drop of amusement in his voice, hoarse of worry.  
"I did say we should keep together, so..."  
"What, you're seriously expecting me to invite you over, is that it?"  
"I just said we should get a hotel room! Wich one of us has bad memory again?"  
They sounded so much like a married couple out on vacation or something. If the situation hadn't been so intense, it would have probably been funny.  
"I tought you were being sarcastic, man."  
Ryan spluttered, and the way annoyance was taking over half the space occupied by fear in his brains was a surprisingly good thing.  
"Do you even know what sarcasm means? I was dead serious."  
God, Shane's face was just so infuriatingly punchable sometimes.  
"You have a look, you know, a stupid face you make when you're not serious."  
"Ryan, you're supposed to keep your eyes on the road, not on my stupid face. You really are a havoc in the society."  
He used that voice again, when he sounded like he was scolding a toddler. It made Ryan want to rip his hair off his head, honestly.

What the hell did he see in that man?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the messiest chapter yet and I hate it. The dialogue is jumpy and hard to follow (in my opinion idk) and ugh I don't like this one AT ALL


	13. Swimming With The Sharks

Ryan had never feared god.

But as he sat down on his bed that night, the hum of traffic in the background, a terrible taste of dread on his tongue, he supposed that if there indeed was a god, he was a fucking maniac.  
There was a car waiting for him outside, a black limo with darkened windows and cigarette smelling seats.  
Shane's car- the one he liked to show off, pretending he was a multimillionare.  
When Ryan would get up and leave the comfort of his bedroom with his gym bag full of clothes and backpack full of guns, he figured that it would be more than likely for him to never return again.  
Things were moving too fast again, a crippling vertigo was coursing trough him, making him want to lay down and never get up, to squeeze his eyes shut so hard that he could see stars.  
It was almost two AM, the glow of the city below was beautiful.  
If Shane hadn't confessed his feelings the day before in that godforsaken motel hallway, things would have been notably less hectic.  
Ryan wouldn't be so afraid to die.

It was all like some stupid puzzle, and Ryan was ashamed that he hadn't put it all together faster.  
It wasn't surprising that Shane had enemies, it would be more concerning if he didn't. But what was the point in dragging Ryan into it all?  
Leverage.  
If Fear had Ryan, he had Shane as well.  
It was flattering to think that he meant so much to Shane, but also terrifying.

His buzzing phone saved him from his dark toughts, waking him to the even darker reality;  
"You coming, or are u taking a shit?"  
Shane was infuriating.  
He secretly loved it.

"Fuck off. 5 minutes"

It took him eleven. Francesca wasn't at the office anymore, so Ryan had to go trough the trouble of gathering the files he didn't want to leave behind all alone. The apartment was big and posh, and he struggled a long while trying to choose in between taking his memory card with him or not.  
That card was his everything, and both options had their dark sides;  
If he took it with him, he'd be taking it straight to a gunfire, but leaving it alone in his apartment where stealing it was possible (not really, the man was just paranoid) was almost as bad.  
He tried to talk sense to his own head as he stood in the study, by the locked jewelery box that looked so casual.  
Nobody but Francesca knew about the flashdrive, it wasperfectly safe!  
So he left it.

"Jesus Ryan, do you even know how to count?! It's been fifteen minutes, not five!"  
"Eleven, actually, so shut the fuck up."  
The limo started to move from the parking lot, a harsh wind had picked up. Shane's driver had to have nerves of steel, how could anyone stand the man's company on a daily basis?  
"So what's the plan?" Ryan forced himself to ask, though keeping quiet for as long as possible would have been a lot more pleasant for his stressed out brain. He was fingering the rim of his jacket with cold hands, trying not to show weakness. The taller man was like a shark, ready to attack at the faintest scent of blood. And by attacking, Ryan meant infuriating teasing.  
"Plan?" Shane made a face- a comical, over exaggeratedly questioning look, like he was from a 1940s black and white comedy film. Ryan wanted to cry.  
"Yes you dipshit, a plan! What are we gonna do now?! You were supposed to figure it out while I went home to pack!"  
His voice cracked, a knot formed in his throat as he watched Shane's face do the thing again; eyebrows rising, that stupid grin on his thin lips.  
"You're actually terrified? You look like a rabbit in the headlights!"  
He laughed- how could he? Ryan wanted to get away from this disgustingly childish man as fast as possible, and the hurt seemed to be visible on his face as Shane's look softened.  
"I'm sorry, Ryan." His eyes scanned the shorter man's own for a hint of redemption, only finding disgust instead.  
"I do have a plan." Shane continued on like nothing had happened, and it was a good thing. Ryan couldn't take the way the man acted, thinking that a look soft as butter and a little apology could fix every dumb thing he let out of his mouth.  
And that wasn't even a big deal compared to the list of shit he had done to Ryan in the past- that was plenty to be mad about.  
"What is it then?" A grunt, Ryan really did sound like pissed off old man sometimes. The tail lights of the cars driving by on the lane by them made his dark hair glimmer a bit, painting a deep red line on his jaw.  
"We get to them first."  
Shane said it like he was addressing a walk to the park, or a friendly neighbourhood garden party- not a cold blooded murder.  
Ryan loved it, trying his best to drive away the sudden arousal that was apparently born from sole repressed anger. It was scary how fast his feelings shifted around Shane.  
"You know where Fear is hiding then?"  
He asked, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself on the ground. It was easy to slip into whatever that feeling was, warm in his guts.  
"He's not hiding, he's waiting."  
"Can you be any more cryptic?"  
Ryan scoffed, eyes scanning the streets outside. People dressed in dark clothes marched as a mindless mass to their own ways, it had started to rain. His eyes met with a homeless man sitting by a corner store, and suddenly he felt uncomfortably voulnerable again.  
"What's with you tonight? Seriously Ryan, you confuse me."  
"What part of my behavior confuses you exactly?"  
There it was again, annoyance.  
"Every part! One minute you're grabbing my arm in a dark motel corridor, the next you're mad at me, then you're having a mental breakdown, and boom, pissed again."  
The hotel wasn't far off- luckily. They didn't have all night to rip off each others throats.  
"I have every right to be pissed! I don't know if you remember, but you burned my house down!"  
"To protect you, idiot!"

A silence. Ryan blinked a few times, hand twitching into a fist.

"You have no idea how much I want to punch you right now."


	14. Now or Never

It felt so unbelievably good to lay down on the fluffy hotel bed. The white sheets smelled like fabric softener, there was even a little chocolate on the pillow and everything. They had gotten a twin room this time, thank god, and Shane paid for all of it. And he had showered now, making it a lot easier to actually share space with the tall man. They sat still now, both on their own beds. Ryan was cleaning his gun in silence, a line of tension cutting trough his heavy brow. And Shane laid on his bed with tall legs spread out like a weird looking spider, drumming his fingers against his tigh. He had ditched his phone some days ago, after Fear had called. It was too risky to have a device so easy to track at hand. He had tried to get Ryan to do the same without success, the shorter man was too dependant on his social networks to give it all up just like that- even in a situation that could have been life threatening.  
"Sara figured out Fear's location, wich wasn't that hard apparently. There's a warehouse in the fringe."  
Shane said, biting on the chapped flakes on his lips like a bored child.  
"Wait-who?" Ryan rubbed his temples as he laid the gun on his tigh and looked at the tall man, the line on his forehead deepening even more.  
"Sara Rubin, my, uh... what's a good word for it? Right hand woman. You've actually met her once."  
"That lady with purple hair who accompanied you in burning my house down?" Ryan's voice was stark.  
"Yeah, her hair isn't purple anymore though."  
Shane spoke like it was not a big deal at all, what was irritating.  
"Can we sleep now? I've got men hanging around the hotel grounds keeping watch, you can drop that tense look off your face. We'll drive there second thing tomorrow. After breakfast."  
It was a pensive silence that followed, Ryan rubbed his temples and craved coffee as his mind raced over things he'd rather not be thinking about.  
"No. We go now, when it's still dark." He finally announced. "Now or never"  
Shane got up to sit.  
"Seriously? Dude, I've gotten barely any sleep since we murked Tinsley! It's almost five in the fucking morning!"  
It had been a crazy couple of days, Ryan couldn't deny that. But what he really needed was for it all to stop, and there was no other way to put an end to the madness but to kill the man who started it.  
Fear needed to die.  
And not only for what he had done for Shane and him, not only for the threat of him killing the both of them, but for everyone else the madman had hurt during his long years in buisness.  
The human trafficking had to stop too. But Ryan knew Fear was just a supplier transferring his patients to the buyers. He was just one of the many heads of the snake.

"You all right there, man?"  
Shane woke Ryan from spacing out with a soft look and a little nudge.  
"Yeah, I... we need to do this now, dude. My brain is imploding, we need to clean up this fucking mess."

It took them twenty minutes to get into a car. Shane had to call his driver to go get his "civilian car" from his house, and Ryan wanted to change into some less muddy, less sweaty clothes. He also went to get a coffee from the hotel restaurant that had just started selling the early breakfast, while Shane made some calls.

"We're going in." He muttered to the payphone as he heard Sara shuffle in the other end.  
"What is it, half past five? Why are you calling me Shane?" She murmured, and Shane could imagine how tired she must have been.  
"I'm calling because this could as well the last time you'll ever hear from me. I could die, Sara. It's not a joke."  
The line went silent. Then there was a sigh.  
"Should I call around, gather a backup squad to cover for you? I just got to bed like two hours ago from tracing Fear's calls for you, what else do you need?"  
Her voice wasn't soft like it often was when they talked, now it was kind of bitter. She must have been worried.  
"I don't need anything else, I just wanted to say goodbye in case..."  
"Oh shut up, you aren't gonna die. I simply won't allow it."

 

 

They sat down on the cool leather seats of Shane's car. Ryan looked pale and terrified, Shane however seemed better than ever. At least he was quiet now.  
"There's one thing I need to do before we go." He said finally, tall fingers tapping the wheel, eyes nailed to the glowing LA horizon.  
"What is it?" Ryan's voice was weak underneath his nervousness, hand brushing the zipper of his gun bag unconsciously.

It happened fast. Shane turned to face Ryan, who was hunched over the front seat like a terrified hamster. He reached over to cup the shorter man's cheek with his palm and softly pulled him forwards, kissing him all softly as his long spine bended uncomfortably over the gearstick and the cupholder.  
Ryan exhaled sharply, breath warm on Shane's cheek, but didn't fight off the kiss at all.

It was all over faster than Ryan's brain could compehend with that much shit on his plate, and he ended up just staring at Shane with those wide eyes of his.  
"Sorry... I wanted to do it at least once while we're both still breathing."  
Shane said softly, eyes trailing away from Ryan who looked like he had just seen a ghost.  
"It's... I'm..." He stammered over words in a nervous awe. "It's fine."  
He ended up saying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being away so long, I kinda needed to get my shit together. I hope you like this shortass chapter, we´re nearing the end


	15. Kill Or Be Killed

They pulled over to the edge of an unkept gravel road maybe ten miles from the city limit in an awkward silence. Ryan's face was flushed red, his ears felt hot as he stared out of the window. Ahead of them was just rocky grounds, dried and crooked trees rimming the road ahead. Not even half a mile walk ahead of them, they could already see the outlines of old warehouses in the dark horizon.  
"I get a vibe here, it's sort of like the Avengers headquarters."  
Shane spoke, pensively scanning the buildings further down the desert. A light was on in front of one of them, a pale yellow beacon in the dark.  
"Why would you get that vibe?" Ryan tried to laugh, maybe that would dull his nerves. Shane looked still deep in tought.  
"Just rolling grounds, a lot of different buildings. Seems like a place the Avengers would live in."  
His tone was almost childish, reminding Ryan that Shane Alexander Madej was indeed a very strange man.  
He made a little chuckle and grabbed his bag, taking out his 38 caliber revolver. Shane had his gun in a holster, he was acting all professional as he held his thumb over the clip.  
They got out of the car and began to walk silently, trying not to make the rocky road crunch too much beneath their feet.

Adrenaline made Ryan's blood feel bubbly, the gun in his grip was cool as they approached the seemingly vacant warehouses. He was supposed to be in his element; the Emperor of LA in assasinations. Instead he felt a pressing sting of nervousness course trough his veins.  
Shane didn't look like he was enjoying the situation either; face pale and expressionless, the way he looked when he hid his fear. His fingers were steady as he held his 9millimeter low, pointed to the sandy ground as they passed trough the front of the first warehouse silently like shadows.  
If everything went smoothly, Fear wouldn't know they were coming. But  
chances were they had been spotted already, wich made Ryan's gut twist.  
It was like a sickening game of tag, they just didn't know who was it.  
Shane's movements were sleek, the dark of his eyes complimented his tall features so well that he could have been straight from a Bond movie. He looked dangerous.  
Ryan's train of tought got interrupted by a burst of low, grumbling laughter muffled by the walls a little further, behing the next corner. Yellow light was spilling from behind the wall into the blue shade of the desert.  
Shane nodded towards the corner, grip visibly tightening around his gun, he was holding it like a lifeline. Ryan did the same. It was so soothingly familiar, yet terrifyingly new at the same time. He had killed tens of people at this point, some had deserved it, some hadn't. But now, for the first time he was out to kill for himself. Nobody paid him to do it, he needed to in order to survive.  
The most textbook law of nature; kill or be killed.  
It was new and old.  
Shane reached the front first, laying his body against the edge of the west wall like a ninja from some action flick, motioning for Ryan to do the same. They could hear the men talking maybe ten feet away. They were in front of the main door as guards.  
"Let's jump them." He mouthed, and Ryan's eyes widened in fear. He was used to Shane's stupid plans, but this was second level risky. Before he could protest though, his tall counterpart had leaped off of the shadows and fired his first shot, quickly followed by the second one.  
The two men laid dead in the gravel faster than Ryan had even left his spot by the wall. He was shaken, and most of all very disappointed in Shane's stupidity.  
"What the fuck dude?!" He hissed, and the tall man in front of him grinned.  
Luckily nobody had seemingly heard the muffled gunshots, but it wouldn't take long for someone to stumble upon the scene.  
"Quick, move your beefy ass and nag later when we ain't in a life or death situation." Shane motioned towards the door behind the two corpses, and Ryan who was too full of Shane's shit to deal began to make his way past the pools of blood.

The inside of the warehouse seemed innocent enough on first glance. It was dark inside, big shipping containers were piled here and there. Some trashbags aside, it seemed rather empty. They stood side by side in the dark and silent hall, Shane's gut twisting with anger and fustaration at the lack of... whatever it was he was expecting. And Ryan, he felt sick. Had his partner just killed two men for nothing? Was this the wrong warehouse? Was this all a trap?

Yes. Yes it fucking was.

"It was rather rude of you to shoot my guards, Shane. You could have just knocked."  
A creaking voice spoke somewhere behind the containers, and Ryan's grip tightened on his gun as his hair stood up out of shock.  
"I don't recall ever telling you my name, Doctor. Why don't you come out here and deal with this like a man?"  
How did Shane do that, where did he find the confidence and courage to speak like that while in immediate danger?  
The first gunshot aimed in between the two men was merely a warning shot.  
"Don't get cocky on me, Madej. I make the rules from now on, and you follow them, or your pretty pet dies."  
Pet? Ryan was growing furious, wich distracted him from his fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m so sorry for the shortness of this one, the next one will pay for it!

**Author's Note:**

> That whole Banjo x Ricky thing is quite worn out at this point but bare with me, it´s gonna get spicy.
> 
> Here´s a link to the inspiration for this whole thing:  
> https://youtu.be/kqVpk0qxmfA  
> (I´m a very un-original guy, I named this fic after a Queen song...)


End file.
